Baglee Family History & Genealogy

This is not so much a story of our family, but a story of a family searching for its heritage. My one brother and myself have been searching the net for a few years now, and were hoping to find our ancestors before our father died, which we were not able to do, unfortunately recently our father passed away, 31 July 2008, to us its still recent, almost like yesterday, he was the first male Bagley to live to the age of 78years. All the males die in the early 60's to 70's of heart complications. Our father died of the same, congestive heart failure, stroke, and possible cancer.

Our great grandfather(Nels Nielson Bagley b.1860 immigrated from Norway. And that's where the family information stops. As most people looking for Norwegian ancestry know, the families usually took on the farm name, so searching is difficult.
Our grandfather Christian Bagley born in Minnesota, later traveled to Canada and became a Canadian citizen. The family moved to Chase B.C.and farmed. My grandfather Christian married Valpuri Maria Tuulari, she immigrated from Finland as a small child. They had 2 children, Melvin Chris Bagley, who died at the age of 5years on mother's day, drowned in a swollen creek, the body was not found for several months. Also born, my father 17 April 1930, Ronald Victor Baglee, and for some unknown reason he was called Victor, we did not know his first name was Ronald until his death and we needed his birth certificate.
My grandfather and my father were avid hunters, most pictures we have of dad are of dad hunting, birds, big game. My grandfather also fished in the Shuswap Lake, i remember him getting some rather large salmon. Grandpa was a cabinet maker, and also built a few small boats. They lived in a small village, at least then it was, Chase, British Columbia. My grandmother worked as a cleaning lady in the grocery store, Beatties, which i think is long gone. I remember going with her to help clean, she worked with another lady, who spoke mostly Finnish, so her and my granny would speak in Finn and laugh, of course we would laugh with them not knowing why.

Our paternal grandfather changed the spelling of his last name because of one of his brother's taking mail that was not his and other unknown incidents. It was changed from Bagley to Baglee.

Our father went from driving logging truck, to building houses and owned his own contracting company for a short period of time.
He married our mother Eileen Blanche Day, b April 25 1938. they had 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys. I am one of the first girls, we are twins, my mother was expecting a rather large boy, and got a two for one. I am the second twin. I was born 55 minutes after my sister. My mother apparently was not aware she had a second child, so my father named me. I am VERY proud that my father named me.
Our mother died just before her 60th birthday, she died of cancer, it took her life after 2 years. She died March of 1998. Our dad's life came to an abrupt halt, my mom always done all the cooking, cleaning etc., except for the two years of her illness,then my dad did what he could. As much as our parents fought, they still needed one another. All of a sudden dad had to take care of himself and the household, it took him a bit, but he got it. I used to come to visit dad and do a spring or fall cleaning, I lived about 450 miles away from him, I hated it, but i had my own family. Dad rarely traveled, he was a home body which our mother did not like, she was adventurous, loved to fly, dad wouldn't get in a plane, i don't blame him its a long way to the ground, i have a fear of flying, but will, with the help of a tranquilizer.

My dad once alone started finally telling stories of his childhood, not sure why he never did before. Although once getting to know our father, he did not just offer up info, he had to be asked, and it had to be the right question and the right timing. He told 3 of 6 of us kids the most stories. One night my dad says to me, please remember these stories, so over the years i have tried to remember them and put them into the computer. Now to just get the rest of the stories, and maybe make a book form, they may be of no interest to anyone else, but it is what makes up our father.

I have learned over the last few years, that the older the children get, the less distance in age between child and parent. Not certain if anyone else has noticed it.
It seems more important now, to find our heritage, its the best thing we can leave to our children.

If anyone reading this, wants to know more info, or has more information or just a guess i can be contacted through my email. [contact link]